4 ms·

Ok, go ahead and consider alternate economic systems. But until we have that new system, would it be alright to continue to respect the wishes of authors who h

Ok, go ahead and consider alternate economic systems. But until we have that new system, would it be alright to continue to respect the wishes of authors who have created creative works under the current economic system? Consent is important. We can’t opt them into our hypothetical passion-driven economic system where is everything is free against their will. Individual authors might opt in, and it’s fair game to pirate their work. But let’s not decide on behalf of other people.

mcculley 4y ago
The decision is not entirely on the author. Jurisdictions have to decide how much they are willing to spend and how far they are willing to go to enforce copyright, potentially forever. Technological advances are going to make it very hard to enforce copyright.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Technological advances are going to make it very hard to enforce copyright. Alternately, technological advances are going to make it much easier to control everything a person has access to, constantly monitor everything they access, and identify/punish those who access unauthorized material.
  - mcculley 4y ago
    I currently mirror many terabytes of content onto external hard drives. I have loaned copies out to many people, who have made their own copies. I will continue to loan to anyone who asks. What technological advances do you imagine preventing me and others from doing this? Storage will continue to decrease in cost. It will only get easier to duplicate these libraries. What happens when they fit on a phone or a thumb drive?
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > What technological advances do you imagine preventing me and others from doing this? DRM "Trusted Computing" and spying at the OS level mostly. Your friend will plug in the external hard drive. Their OS will immediately scan the contents, upload filenames/hashes to a server to compare them against anything they consider illegal or unacceptable. Any attempt to play media will require your computer to connect to the internet to verify that you have a valid license for it. Your friend's OS will be 100% cloud based (Windows360 SE) making every device basically a dumb terminal and anything they do on their computer could be watched and analyzed in real time for signs of illegal activity (and market research). Your files may not even be accessible at all for your friends since the OS could stamp each file with an ID and remote attestation could prevent any unauthorized computer/user account from viewing the files. You can't authorize all your friends computers without de-authorizing your own. Limited number of authorizations per year. Any attempts to access unauthorized content could be logged and reported to authorities. See also: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/right-to-read/ https://nakamotoinstitute.org/right-to-read/
      - mcculley 4y ago
        I have no doubt that there will be advances in DRM. I am entirely unconvinced that machines without DRM will be unobtainable.
        autoexec 4y ago
        Very soon you won't be able to buy a computer with a modern processor from either Intel or AMD that doesn't include code written by Microsoft designed to prevent your computer from booting at all unless it's got Windows installed. Currently they allow you to toggle a switch in software that will let you bypass that restriction, but no promises that it'll stay that way (https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-pluton-secure-processor/ https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-pluton-secure-processo...) and (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/59931.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/59931.html) DRM is in every browser, and even in the HTML5 spec. Every computer/monitor that supports HDMI already has DRM included in it designed to prevent you from making unauthorized copies of high quality video content. Like all DRM it's illegal to bypass that. Starting with Windows 10 (although a windows update later added it to 7 and 8) Microsoft collects your filenames. Apple already wanted to scan their customer's personal files for illegal content. We're much much closer to that reality than I'd like. There's already very little hope of getting away from DRM.

mcculley 4y ago

The decision is not entirely on the author. Jurisdictions have to decide how much they are willing to spend and how far they are willing to go to enforce copyright, potentially forever. Technological advances are going to make it very hard to enforce copyright.

autoexec 4y ago
> Technological advances are going to make it very hard to enforce copyright. Alternately, technological advances are going to make it much easier to control everything a person has access to, constantly monitor everything they access, and identify/punish those who access unauthorized material.
- mcculley 4y ago
  I currently mirror many terabytes of content onto external hard drives. I have loaned copies out to many people, who have made their own copies. I will continue to loan to anyone who asks. What technological advances do you imagine preventing me and others from doing this? Storage will continue to decrease in cost. It will only get easier to duplicate these libraries. What happens when they fit on a phone or a thumb drive?
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > What technological advances do you imagine preventing me and others from doing this? DRM "Trusted Computing" and spying at the OS level mostly. Your friend will plug in the external hard drive. Their OS will immediately scan the contents, upload filenames/hashes to a server to compare them against anything they consider illegal or unacceptable. Any attempt to play media will require your computer to connect to the internet to verify that you have a valid license for it. Your friend's OS will be 100% cloud based (Windows360 SE) making every device basically a dumb terminal and anything they do on their computer could be watched and analyzed in real time for signs of illegal activity (and market research). Your files may not even be accessible at all for your friends since the OS could stamp each file with an ID and remote attestation could prevent any unauthorized computer/user account from viewing the files. You can't authorize all your friends computers without de-authorizing your own. Limited number of authorizations per year. Any attempts to access unauthorized content could be logged and reported to authorities. See also: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/right-to-read/ https://nakamotoinstitute.org/right-to-read/
    - mcculley 4y ago
      I have no doubt that there will be advances in DRM. I am entirely unconvinced that machines without DRM will be unobtainable.
      - autoexec 4y ago
        Very soon you won't be able to buy a computer with a modern processor from either Intel or AMD that doesn't include code written by Microsoft designed to prevent your computer from booting at all unless it's got Windows installed. Currently they allow you to toggle a switch in software that will let you bypass that restriction, but no promises that it'll stay that way (https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-pluton-secure-processor/ https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-pluton-secure-processo...) and (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/59931.html https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/59931.html) DRM is in every browser, and even in the HTML5 spec. Every computer/monitor that supports HDMI already has DRM included in it designed to prevent you from making unauthorized copies of high quality video content. Like all DRM it's illegal to bypass that. Starting with Windows 10 (although a windows update later added it to 7 and 8) Microsoft collects your filenames. Apple already wanted to scan their customer's personal files for illegal content. We're much much closer to that reality than I'd like. There's already very little hope of getting away from DRM.